Abstract
That more human geographers do not conduct research into, or teach about, the media is somewhat surprising. Television, cinema, magazines, newspapers, the internet and even comic strips have all received attention from time to time, going back to Jacquie Burgess and John Gold’s (1985) edited collection Geography, the Media and Popular Culture (if not further). Though Paul Adams (2009) has recently thrown a rope around the research conducted to date (see his Geographies of Media and Communication: A Critical Introduction), only if one elasticates the meaning of the term ‘media’ can one say that the body of work extant is significant in weight. Even then, the research remains rather eclectic and piecemeal, and even the news media – a significant shaper of all our perceptions of self and other, here and there – attracts the attention of precious few human geographers (such as Max and Jules Boykoff).
Libby Lester’s is one of several recent books on how the news media reports environmental issues. It attracted my attention because I teach a final-year undergraduate course about the various arenas in which ordinary people are rendered epistemically dependent on others for insights into issues of critical importance. Media and Environment is aimed at degree students and their lecturers, not so much in a discipline like geography but in the fields of media studies, communication studies and journalism. This said, the book is not written in such a way as to exclude readers not studying in these three areas: it is highly accessible in terms of both style and content. Lester is based at the University of Tasmania, but prior to this she was a journalist working on environmental news stories for an Australian broadsheet newspaper. She has been able to interpret academic theory and a large body of empirical research into the news media in light of several years of practitioner experience. The result is very pleasing indeed. The book, Lester explains early on, ‘is interested in meanings, messages and debates and how they contribute to personal and political decision making and action about environmental futures, both for individual citizens and for national and international communities’ (p. 4). Hers is not a media-centric text, focused only on news media institutions and professionals. Instead, she situates the latter in a wider arena in which civil society, corporate and political actors seek to influence the news media; she also, rightly, pays attention to how the news media influences the public sphere comprised of citizen-subjects.
Media and Environment is written in plain, readable English. The large font is easy on the eye and all the chapters are neither too short nor too long. The book is quite light on theory, but it is thick with stories about real media events, stories and actors. There are surprisingly few visual aids in the book, but those that are included are of interest. The book has seven chapters. The first sets present-day environmental news reporting in the context of the history of mass mediated informational production and consumption in capitalist societies. The second thematizes the importance of environmental news reporting in terms of the Beck notion of a risk society. The third then focuses in on news media institutions and practices. The fourth looks at the environmental ‘sources and voices’ that get selected – or try to get noticed – by the news media. Chapter Five looks at how environmental protesters have sought to gain a hearing in the news media. The sixth chapter looks at recurrent symbols used to report environmental news and the recent phenomena of environmental celebrities. The final chapter then draws out the implications for public life and citizen decision-making.
The chapters can easily be recommended to students as stand-alone pieces, while the book as a whole is not a demanding read (while being an enlightening one). Because Media and Environment prioritizes case material discussion over elaborate theorization I would certainly recommend it as a degree-level teaching aid. It can be used with more conceptually and analytically penetrating texts as one wishes. In sum, Libby Lester has authored an informative, wide-ranging introduction to the subject of the news media and environmental reporting.